


Countdown

by admiralty



Series: Introspection [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s07e04 Millennium, F/M, First Kiss, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-29 14:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17204900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/admiralty/pseuds/admiralty
Summary: Mulder POV of the Millennium kiss.“I’ve discovered a new world. I am Christopher motherfucking Columbus and I’ve finally touched down onto the shores of Dana Scully. Today is no longer New Year’s Day; today is I Kissed Scully Day and I’ll never have to mark it on my calendar to remember it.”





	Countdown

_Scully loves me._

It’s not just mislaid self-confidence. It’s not a hunch, or a gut feeling. I get those all the time and they’re usually fairly accurate. This is different. I _know_ she loves me because just a couple weeks ago I read her mind.

That particular talent didn't last long, and I can’t do it anymore. But that’s the funny thing about mind-blowing revelations: you only need to hear them once to know the truth.

I wish the reverse were true. I wish it could have been her who read my mind. If she knew I loved her, maybe she’d know what to do. Scully always knows what to do.

She’s perfect, really. Scully is actually _the_ perfect woman. So… she’s perfect and she’s in love with me. Knowing this rather important tidbit of information is making things more… complicated. Now that I know she reciprocates my feelings, she’s even harder to resist.

Why resist, you ask? _Well._

It’s not that I don’t want to be with her. I mean, fuck, I do… more than anything. It just doesn’t feel fair that I know her secret and she doesn’t know mine. For her to know, I’d have to tell her… and the ramifications of that admission terrify me. The irony doesn’t escape me. I have a crystal fucking ball and I still haven’t made a move.

The truth is I honestly don’t see this working out. I’m one hundred percent certain I would fuck it up. She’s way too good for me. To be frank, I doubt any man in the world is good enough for Scully. It’s not that she’s picky or egocentric; on the contrary, she has absolutely no clue how perfect she is. She has no idea how much she deserves. It makes sense she’d fall for someone like me, and it isn’t really fair to her.

But I can’t deny the stirrings in my heart, and deep in my gut when I entertain the possibility that this woman could love me. Thinking about her finding something lovable about Fox “Spooky” Mulder makes my head spin and my insides ache.

Problem is, I’m a selfish asshole, and I know it. I don’t want to be, but it’s just a product of being alone for most of my life.

I don’t want to be selfish when it comes to Scully. She deserves better than that. But my mind wanders where it shouldn’t anyway. I’m a guy, what can I say? I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched her tongue slide across her bottom lip and have to suppress a groan. I’ve imagined it, over and over again: taking her into my arms, tasting those perfect lips. Then reaching down and parting her thighs in search of just one more answer, one more truth…

See? Asshole.

I can’t think about her that way, she’s my partner. My equal. If she knew I was thinking these things I can’t even imagine what she’d do. Every time these thoughts enter my mind I feel like a terrible person and an even worse friend. But feeling terrible about it hasn’t stopped me from losing my damn mind every time she does that tongue thing.

Not to mention the fact that, in the end, I’m just a huge chicken shit.

Tonight is the first real opportunity I’ve had to make a move, any kind of move, with the anticipation that she might actually reciprocate. It’s New Year’s Eve and this can go one of two ways. One: she’ll slap me, and I can blame New Year’s. Or two: maybe, just maybe, she’ll kiss me back. I’m pretty confident for the first time in my life she’ll do the second thing.

I cannot believe how pathetic this is; that I have to go through these machinations to justify something she and I have entirely earned. It’s ludicrous, but here we are.

Should I do this? Would I be starting something neither of us know how to finish? Or can this be simply what it is… a tiny step, a first step towards something bigger?

No, it wouldn’t be tiny. We’ve taken a hundred half-steps already, but I cannot kid myself. This would be absolutely huge for us. If it wasn’t, I’d have tried it by now.

The selfishness takes over again. I have to know what her lips feel like on mine, I _have_ to know. I can’t wait anymore. I need to know what it feels like for her to kiss me back, not just when her lips are blue and frozen and alien entities are bursting through ice all around us and I’m just trying to keep us both from dying. That doesn’t count.

It will just be this one time, just this once, just so I can have my answer. Then everything can stay the way it is. Right?

It won’t be the end of the world.

She’s watching the television, her beautiful neck craned up like swan’s, her aquiline nose achingly perfect. Again, my thoughts drift to how soft her skin would probably feel, how rarely I get to actually touch it.

Dick Clark counts down predictably to the new year, and people cheer in Times Square. But I feel like this countdown is meant specifically for me, for us, right now. And everything is moving at what seems to be the speed of light.

_Ten… nine… eight…_

My mind battles with itself, second guessing, cognizant of the weight of this. If I do it now, when everyone else in the eastern standard time zone is doing it, it can mean absolutely nothing if we want it to.

Or it can mean everything.

_Seven… six… five…_

It’s just a kiss. It’s _just_ a _kiss_. For fuck’s sake, why does this feel so enormous? It’s only because we’ve waited so long. We’ve dug ourselves into this hole and if I ever want to see the sun I need to pick up a fucking shovel and do some work.

_Four… three… two… one…_

I’ve made my decision. As I stare intently at the television, cheers go up around New York City and I can vaguely sense people kissing, but all really want to see is a picture of myself kissing Scully, finally.  

I turn to her, wondering if it’s possible she’s actually thinking the same thing. When I lean in, she senses me coming and angles her head towards mine. Before I even know what’s happening her lips are against mine, and in that moment, our eyes close and time ceases to exist.

Forget light speed. Time slows _way_ down.

We’re alone in this room and if there were anyone watching us they’d probably assume this kiss was nothing earth shattering. But they would be wrong. We are still, and calm, and it’s as if the contact alone is enough to make every cell in my body react, this insurmountable forbidden contact finally a reality.

I’ve discovered a new world. I am Christopher motherfucking Columbus and I’ve finally touched down onto the shores of Dana Scully. Today is no longer New Year’s Day; today is I Kissed Scully Day and I’ll never have to mark it on my calendar to remember it.

The kiss lasts for a few seconds. Or a few hours. I don’t know, all I know is this is finally happening and it feels amazing. I can’t really taste her because my tongue remains stuck behind the fortress my lips have created for some reason and my inner voice is screaming at me _do not stick your tongue in her mouth do not stick your tongue in her mouth do NOT._ I don’t know why, but I listen. Every other part of my body is behaving and I feel like this is probably the right course of action.

Before I’m tempted to stick my tongue in her mouth anyway, which I suspect would be pushing my already unbelievable luck, I pull away from her slowly. Her eyes are still closed and her lips are still pursed and I immediately regret pulling away because I’m pretty sure the expression I’m seeing is textbook “left wanting more.”

I consider diving back in. I honestly do. But her eyes open, _damn it,_ and looking directly into them always catches me off guard. And looking into them when we’re this close, closer than we’ve ever been before, absolutely floors me.

She cocks her head to the side and for a moment I still think it’s possible she might slap me. But then she smiles… _that_ smile. That smile turns my insides to jelly. Her face tells me she’s okay, that _that_ was okay. Better than okay, even. Maybe?

I smile back because that really just happened and yet here we are, Mulder and Scully, still the same.

“The world didn’t end,” I say, because it didn’t, and maybe now that this kiss is out of the way I can go back to focusing on work for a while.

Or not.

“No, it didn’t,” she replies, her smile warm. She knows what I meant. She usually does.

And then there’s a look in her eyes I can’t quite figure out. But I quickly realize it’s because I’m feeling the exact same thing. First, relief, that I did it, _we_ did it. It’s over.

Then that relief quickly morphs into disappointment.

_It’s over._

Why am I so stupid? Did I honestly believe that would be it, that would be the end of it? What am I, twelve? Jesus Christ. This was only the beginning and we both know it. I’ve pushed us forward towards something I can no longer control.

Truthfully, I never had control, but at least before, I had some semblance of an illusion of control. Now all I want is to do that again, and again, and then some. I didn’t rid myself of my desire, I’ve duplicated it a hundredfold.

_Fuck._

“Happy New Year, Scully,” I say. Because I really need to keep this thing between us safe and light, not murky and complex, even more so than it’s always been.

“Happy New Year, Mulder,” she says back. I can see a tiny smile and dare I even hope... satisfaction?

My one good arm is around her and we are walking away from the scene of the crime before I can use it to pull her in again, go for Take Two and see where it will lead.

I wonder how long I can go this time without doing it again.

I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions but here and now I make one: to be braver this year; brave enough for this brave new world Scully and I seem to have entered.

I hope I can keep this resolution. If not, I guess there’s always next year.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for reading. This has been such a fantastic year discovering I have a love for writing and I couldn’t have done it without all of your support. 
> 
> Happy 2019, Philes! ♥️👽😘


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